Some of the very best pizzas to be found in Houston are at restaurants where pizzas are just one small part of the menu. These are almost all Italian-focused, or Italian-leaning, and mostly fine dining. Pizzas have not typically found at nice restaurants in Italy outside of the Naples area, but American restaurants are not bound by those conventions, or most others, for that matter. And that’s usually a good thing.  More pizza is usually a good thing, too. Quality pizza, always so.
 
The best of these pizzas are inspired by those found in Naples: individually sized, a thin, soft crust with raised edges, and a minimal amount of high-quality toppings that’s been cooked in a very hot, often wood-burning oven that’s been built for the purpose. It is a testament to the skill of a kitchen to be able to make tasty pizza dough and then adorn and cook a pizza properly, consistently. It is not easy. I know, having countless mediocre and worse renditions in recent years sampling margherita pizzas in restaurants throughout the city. Below are restaurants where you can order a pizza with confidence. Those at the top of the list, you might even go just for the pizza. Listed in order of preference.
 
The Best
 
Da Marco – Marco Wiles introduced Neapolitan-inspired pizzas to Houston here, which begat the stellar pizza-centric Dolce Vita for many years down the street. Only offering its excellent take on the margherita and only at lunch, but it’s still one of the best pizzas in the city. Montrose
Amalfi – Chef-proprietor Giancarlo Ferrara hails from Salerno down the coast from Naples and his pizza oven helps showcase the pride he takes in his region’s beloved creation. The skillfully rendered Neapolitan-inspired pizzas come in ten different versions ranging from a margherita with Buffalo mozzarella and grape tomatoes to one featuring marinated salmon, a cacio e pepe and another with roasted pork, spicy salami and jalapeños. Briargrove
 
Very Good
 
Ostia – Just a red and white – no tomato sauce – and just at lunch. The red might involve a margherita with a protein the white cheese and maybe an egg. Both feature a properly enjoyable, fairly flavorful soft crust with ingredients that are noticeably higher quality and so tastier than usual. You might want a little more integration between the toppings and crust, but these are still pizzas were returning for.  Montrose
Amore – This replication of sorts of Da Marco from a former chef also does a very creditable job of Neapolitan-themed pizzas featuring a well-made thin crust and pleasing, appropriate toppings, much more than just the margherita. Cooked in a prominently displayed golden tile-covered pizza oven at this simply set 86-seater somewhat hidden away on Shepherd near W. Alabama sharing a pizza can be a fine way to start a meal or as a lunch.  Montrose
Rosie Cannonball – The upscale, pricy, mostly Italian, often Emilian cuisine-inspired eatery takes a detour to Naples for its commendable, thin individual pizzas available with a half-dozen including a couple vegetarian ones that almost hit the $25 mark, but you’ll willing pay that. Top-notch ingredients are used properly with a fine crust anchoring the pizzas that are Italian in style if not necessarily Neapolitan.  Montrose
Trattoria Sofia – The pizzas might be the only reason to visit this Italian-American spot on 11th Street that is part of the Berg collection of restaurants. Small in size, even for an individually sized pizza, the crust is light and flavorful. Thin crust, the pizzas are not Neapolitan, more like an American restaurant imitation of it, but quite enjoyable. Available in several appealing versions. These are even better than the ones at its sibling B+B Butchers, which are also fairly well done.  Heights
 
Good
 
Weights + Measures – This very versatile spot also does a commendable job with pizzas cooked in a wood-burning oven including a unique version topped with roasted carrots, the cooked onion and cream soubise sauce, Fresno chiles, cilantro, dukka and gruyere that has earned plenty of fans. There are several other options including the necessary margherita if you don’t want to stray too far from tradition. For all of them, you can expect that the dough will be of high quality from a restaurant sharing space with Slough Dough bake shop. Midtown
Tiny Boxwoods / Tiny’s No. 5 – These precious spots perfect for moms dining with daughters returning home from the sorority don’t skimp on the quality of its fare, which includes some tasty, nicely light pizzas made with quality ingredients in a handful of enticing options including a margherita-like with pesto substituting for basil solo.  River Oaks, West U
Carrabba’s (Kirby and Voss) – Houston’s favorite Italian-American restaurants, the two original Carrabba’s still run by Johnny and mother, serve creditable individually sized but hearty pizzas from pizza ovens set near the seemingly always bustling bar area. There is a margherita and pepperoni, of course but another with sausage, eggplant, and sweet peppers and another with fig, arugula, and prosciutto along with lemon preserves, goat cheese, and pine nuts with a balsamic glaze. Plus, different than the others on the list, you can create your list of toppings. Upper Kirby, Briargrove

The tasty Pesto & Mozzarella Pizza at Tiny's No. 5 in West U.

​Pizza originated in Italy, to be sure, but it is not originally Italian.  This is because pizza is specifically Neapolitan in origin.  It’s from Naples, the big, chaotic and historic port city in southern Italy, and pizza actually spread more quickly throughout the U.S. than it did elsewhere in Italy, as odd as that may seem.  Pizza initially traveled with the immigrants from Naples and its environs, of whom there were many to the U.S.  To note, the Sicilian pizza is also fair part the pizza landscape here.  Arriving later, it was derived from the sfincione served in Palermo, a type of spongy focaccia, but that’s for another tale.
 
A brief history of pizza in America until it become popular
 
One of the most important events in the gustatory history of the country seems to have begun officially in 1905 when Gennaro Lombardi, a native of Naples, opened the first licensed pizzeria in America in Manhattan’s Little Italy, Lombardi’s.  He had been making versions of this strictly Neapolitan fast food at the bakery in which he worked, which was also being done elsewhere, at least in his neighborhood.  The New York Tribune noted a couple of years earlier in 1903 in Little Italy that “apparently the Italian has invented a kind of pie. The ‘pomidore pizza,’ or tomato pie.”  These pizza pies were just the province of these Neapolitans; in Italy at the time, it was not found outside of the vicinity of Naples. “There are only two places in New York where you can get real, genuine Neapolitan pizze. One is on Spring Street and one on Grand. The rest are Americanized substitutes,” reported an informed source, “the Dago,” in a Sun piece in the summer of 1905.
 
These pizzas first found an audience with those recently arrived Neapolitans and quickly spread to all the Italians living in the neighborhood.  Pizza has proven to be a very easy sell over the years.  In the 1920s and 1930s Lombardi’s former employees, all Neapolitans, opened pizzerias in Brooklyn, East Harlem and uptown Manhattan that would be destined to become icons in their own right.  But, pizzas were really an ethnic, mostly Italian, specialty until after the Second World War, even in New York City.   Also in the 1920s, pizzerias were opened by Neapolitan immigrants in the Italian neighborhoods of New Haven, Connecticut, Trenton, and Boston.  Philadelphia and Chicago were two of the few other cities with Neapolitan pizzaioli and pizza before the Depression. 
 
Pizza spread throughout the country after the Second World War, as it began to be served well beyond the Italian neighborhoods.  Starting and growing in areas with virtually no competition from pizzerias with Italian antecedents, several regional, national and international pizza companies got their start in the mid-1950s to 1960: Shakey’s in Sacramento in 1954 – the name referencing one of its malaria-damaged owners – Pizza Hut in Wichita and Pizza Inn in Dallas in 1958, Little Caesar’s in suburban Detroit in 1959, and Domino’s in Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1960.  Commercially made gas and electric pizza ovens, along with large mixers for the dough introduced in the mid-1950s, helped make the creation of the pizzas easier, far less dependent on a seasoned pizza-maker. American business know-how helped even more.  The franchise system increased the number of branches and market presence quickly.  Even if far from the best pizzas around – the pies usually featured doughier and blander crusts and lower-quality toppings – these pizza chains have been greatly enjoyed by millions over the years.  Not incidentally, with tremendous insight, or luck, Pizza Hut, Dominos and Pizza Inn first opened right near colleges and universities whose enrollment grew tremendously from the 1950s on, something that these chain pizza joints rode to continued and continuing success.
 
An even briefer history of pizza in Italy outside of Naples
 
“Pizza, which was unknown in north Italy before the war” recounted cookbook author Marcella Hazan in her memoir Amacord.  Pizzas was difficult to find anywhere outside of the Naples region through the 1950s. Even in southern Italy beyond the greater Naples area, it was not be found.  A family friend from Reggio Calabria, the city at the toe of the boot, did not have her first pizza until she arrived in New York in the late 1950s.  She said that Naples was the only place in Italy to get pizza then.
 
It came to those other cities with transplanted Neapolitans who traveled north to find work in the industrial boom after the war.  For example, in Hazan’s northern region, Parma, a well-to-do and university city, got its first pizzeria in 1960 started by a person from Salerno, south of Naples.  Though now popular throughout Italy, pizza has taken hold the most in a city closer to Naples, Rome, which has developed a couple distinctive versions.  The first was pizza tonda, a round pizza with a blistered cracker-thin crust that grew out of the Neapolitan versions.  Then came pizza al taglio, a long rectangular pizza without Neapolitan antecedents, which is more like a focaccia and sold mostly in take-away places.  It has become synonymous with Roman pizza outside of Rome.  The Eternal City also currently boasts some excellent pizzerias making version similar to those in Naples.    
 
It is true what Carol Helotsky wrote in her book Pizza - A Global History: “Pizza went from being strictly Neapolitan to being Italian-American and then becoming Italian,” though I’d clarify, adding that it became American after Italian-American.

Brandi in Naples, the birthplace of the margherita pizza, and the home of the best margherita pizza I've ever eaten.

I had enjoyed my first pizza at The Gypsy Poet, a smart and friendly, newish pizza joint in a slower of Midtown, and decided to sample their version of the margherita on my second visit.  It was fairly disappointing.  Order another pie there.  I had shied away from ordering margheritas after the slog that my Margherita Pizza Project turned out to be, but I have occasionally craved a good or even decent version, with memories of the vibrancy and tastiness of an excellent slightly charred dough combining with seemingly magical amalgamation of pureed tomatoes, quality mozzarella, and a few basil leaves that a well-made margherita offers.  I had one at an outpost of the lauded Gino Sorbillo in Milan in October. 
 
Where to get a good version in Houston?  The top margheritas in Houston take inspiration from Naples, not surprisingly, since this is where the margherita was born and is still one of its most popular pizzas. 
 
Where you should order a margherita pizza:

• Dolce Vita – Nicely light and Italian-tasting if not really Neapolitan in style, even with its soft wet center and raised crust.  Dolce Vita remains the city’s best pizzeria and it will remain open, thankfully, after news this summer that it was going to shutter.
• Amalfi – More Neapolitan-tasting than Dolce Vita’s, even with the addition of sliced tomatoes to the sauce.  This is one of Houston’s best Italian restaurants and the chef / co-owner Giancarlo Ferrara hails from Salerno, down the coast from Naples.
• Da Marco – The version at Dolce Vita’s big brother might have been the first really good version of the margherita pizza here

 
Where you can order a margherita pizza in decent conscience, in order of preference:

• Fresco Italian Café – Rectangular-shaped and cut into squares, the small and inexpensive pizza seemed to me to be almost a cross between the traditional thin, cracker-like crust pizza of Rome and its thicker, spongier pizza al taglio.  This features fresh tomato slices, noticeably good quality ingredients and a nicely tasty crust.
• Osso & Kristalla
• Solario – Featuring nicely clean flavors and pretty decent ingredients, if not quite the highest quality, and done in the traditional Neapolitan or at least Italian style that is a great value during lunch.
• Grimaldi’s – Easily the best of the New York-style places for the margherita; lighter and more flavorful crust that was more Italian than New York-style
• Fratelli’s
• Weights + Measures
• Tiny’s No. 5
• Prego
• Pizaro’s
• Cane Rosso – It’s alright.

The Regina Margherita at Amalfi

​This past summer, Marco Wiles, the owner of Dolce Vita put its property on lower Westheimer up for sale, which would have meant that Houston’s best pizzeria – easily its best pizzeria since its inception in early 2006 in my mind – would be shuttering.  I wasn’t even sure that it was still open until a co-worker alerted to the fact that it was.  I had to visit at least one more time.
 
It was as tasty as always last night, with the Neapolitan-inspired pizzas featuring a flavorful and thin crust somewhat charred on the bottom and topped with a judicious and thoughtful, often vibrant, mix of very good ingredients.  Both the Taleggio that’s topped with plentiful arugula, thinly sliced pears, along with the noticeable aroma truffle oil, and the Calabrese, a slightly artisanal take on the pepperoni pizza, were more than satiating.  Paired with a very reasonably price rosé from the Veneto, and a lively setting, it was quite an enjoyable dinner.
 
We had to ask the waiter when the restaurant was closing, hoping for some more time for at least another visit.  Surprisingly, he replied that it’s not.  Seemingly, Wiles could not get the price he wanted and decided to keep Dolce Vita going.  This is great news.  In what turned out to be very dispiriting research into the city’s margherita pizzas, Dolce Vita was the best I had, which further confirmed its primacy among the local pizza joints.  With an engaging wine list, cocktails, and very well-done dishes beyond pizzas, it’s really much more than a pizza joint.  But, I’ll continue to go there for the pizzas.
 
Dolce Vita
500 Westheimer (between Taft and Montrose), 77006, (713) 520-8222
dolcevitahouston.com

I was reminded to revisit this after having a desultory version of the margherita pizza the other day at Laurenzo’s, a place I generally like.  It just confirmed that the most important thing that I learned after eating close to one hundred margherita pizzas mostly in Houston for my more fatuous than fun Margherita Pizza Project over the past three years is that if you see “margherita pizza” on a menu, don’t order it.  The Project was illuminating, if ultimately quite disappointing. 
 
Most margherita pizzas to found in the Houston area, the vast majority in fact, are lousy: tasteless at best, and exposing cardboard-tasting crusts and cheap, worthless slices of tomatoes at worst, with far too many featuring cheap, industrial-quality mozzarella that adds very little to the enjoyment of the pizza.
 
The margherita pizza is very simple – it’s just tomato sauce that’s usually uncooked, mozzarella cheese and fresh basil leaves atop a pizza crust that has been quickly baked – but that simplicity is a big obstacle for most restaurants to overcome in making a good margherita pizza.  A margherita puts a premium on the quality of the few ingredients, which have no place to hide, and the crust, which should be fairly soft and tasty, playing a bigger role than in most pizzas as there are fewer components.  And most local versions are lacking a taste of freshness, a vibrancy, that a good margherita pizza should have.
 
Some other things I’ve learned:

• Definitely do not order one if it is spelled “margarita” on the menu, a sure sign that the restaurant does not know what it is doing with this pizza.  You'd be surprised how often margarita finds its way from the drinks section.
• Be very way if you see tomatoes as one of the ingredients.  A proper margherita uses tomato sauce, which will seep into the crust and complement the cheese.  Tomato slices don’t have enough moisture to do that, and most tomatoes used in inexpensive and moderately priced Houston restaurants are terrible.  There are exceptions like the ones at Amalfi, which leads to another important takeaway:
• Restaurants serving Italian-themed food, especially those with roots in or inclinations to the Naples area, the birthplace of pizza and the margherita, are about the only places you should order a margherita pizza.

 
If you are thinking about ordering a margherita pizza in the future, you’ve now been warned.

Dolce Vita actually has a margherita pizza that you should order.

​I was disappointed with the margherita pizza I had during my first visit to Luna Pizzeria.  Well, I ended up being disappointed with a great number of margherita pizzas during my odd odyssey that was the Margherita Pizza Project, and there were others far worse along the way.  I decided to give Luna another try, as a friend of mine whose judgement I trust is a regular customer.  I am very glad that I did.  On recent visit, I tremendously enjoyed their take on the pepperoni – which their crust is far better suited than for the bare-bones margherita – and stumbled upon an excellent lunch special. 
 
The smaller diameter pepperoni that gives its names to the pepperoni pizza is obviously much better than what Is typically found, and it shed off enough welcome grease to be soaked up with the not-so-thin crust, making it, and the pizza, overall, tastier.  An intermittently blistered and raised crown seemed to help, too.  The other ingredients beyond the pepperoni seemed to be generally better than usual, too.  The judiciously used mozzarella didn’t really stand out, but there was also provolone and the Parmigiano-like Grana Padano mixed and melted in.  Shavings of Grana Padano were also were brought to table on a small plate along with plenty of crushed red pepper and, something different, sprigs of fresh oregano.  Along with bringing complementary toppings to the table, the rest of the service and friendliness of these counter-service pizza parlors are somewhat unusual given the inexpensiveness, and another reason to like these casual eateries.
 
Yet another is that this fairly substantial 9” pepperoni pizza I liked so much is available daily until 4:00 for just $10.50 and served with a small green or Caesar salad, which are actually fairly substantially sized for starter salads.  It is a terrific value.  The other five Signature Pizzas can be part of this lunch special, too: Mushroom (baby portobello, shitake, oyster, button mushrooms, spinach, rosemary and whipped ricotta); Sausage (sweet Italian sausage, red onions and red peppers); Spicy Andouille (also with fresh jalapeños, red onion, red peppers, and green onions); Prosciutto and Arugula (also with tomato sauce, mozzarella, provolone, sliced and a lemon vinaigrette drizzle); and the Margherita, but I recommend one of the other five.
 
Luna Pizzeria
3435 Kirby (at Richmond), (832) 767-6338
7705 Westheimer (just west of Voss / Hillcroft), (281) 974-1818
107 Yale (south of I-10), (832) 834-7532
lunapizzeria.com

​My Margherita Pizza Project just has two or three stops left.  Thankfully.  The margheritas I’ve had recently haven’t been that great on average.  That includes some I had during a two week sojourn in Italy.
 
Cane Rosso (Montrose) – Satisfactory
Dolcevita (Parma) – Good
La Fresca (Heights) – Satisfactory
Mia Bella (Greenway Plaza) – Fair
Osteria Giuseppe Verdi (Parma) – Poor
Rocco’s – Poor
Roma’s Pizza – Poor


At Dolcevita near the Piazza Garibaldi in Parma, Italy

er​Pizza is from Italy, but pizza is Neapolitan in origin.  It came from Naples, specifically, and actually spread more quickly throughout the U.S. than it did in Italy from its birthplace in Naples, as odd as that may seem.  Pizza initially traveled with the immigrants from Naples and its environs, of whom there were many in this country.
 
One of the most important events in the gustatory history of the country – and an immeasurable future boon to children, college students and the makers of heartburn remedies – seems to have begun officially in 1905 when Gennaro Lombardi, a native of Naples, opened the first licensed pizzeria in America in Manhattan’s Little Italy, Lombardi’s.  He had been making versions of this strictly Neapolitan fast food at the bakery in which he worked, which was also being done elsewhere, at least in his neighborhood.  The New York Tribune noted a couple of years earlier in 1903 in Little Italy that “apparently the Italian has invented a kind of pie. The ‘pomidore pizza,’ or tomato pie.”   These pizza pies were just the province of these Neapolitans; in Italy at the time, it was not found outside of the vicinity of Naples.   “There are only two places in New York where you can get real, genuine Neapolitan pizze. One is on Spring Street and one on Grand. The rest are Americanized substitutes,” reported an informed source, “the Dago,” in a Sun piece in the summer of 1905.   With that first pizzeria at 52 Spring Street, Lombardi used a coal-fired oven, a typical commercial oven at the time.  Though wood was used in the pizzerias in Naples, coal was readily available in New York and burned more efficiently than wood.   The coal-fired ovens would help give New York pies a distinctive crust and a little different taste than their progenitors on the Bay of Naples. It was often charred, crisp yet pliable, though not soggy, as the centers of the pizzas in Naples are. 
 
These pizzas first found an audience with those recently arrived Neapolitans and quickly spread to all the Italians living in the neighborhood.  Pizza has proven to be a very easy sell over the years.  In the 1920s and 1930s Lombardi’s former employees, all Neapolitans, opened pizzerias in Brooklyn, East Harlem and uptown Manhattan that would be destined to become icons in their own right.  But, pizzas were really an ethnic, mostly Italian, specialty until after the Second World War, even in New York City.   Also in the 1920s, pizzerias were opened by Neapolitan immigrants in the Italian neighborhoods of New Haven, Connecticut, Trenton, and Boston.  Philadelphia and Chicago were two of the few other cities with Neapolitan pizzaiolos and pizza before the Depression.   Pizzerias were then still run solely by these Neapolitans and their offspring.  Pizzas began its worldwide conquest from Naples and being strictly Neapolitan to being Neapolitan-American then Italian-American and then becoming Italian.  Pizza was very difficult to find outside of the Naples area before 1960, the early 1960s, in fact.
 
Another trademark American quality, in addition to convenience and efficiency, is size.  The size of pizzas grew in diameter from its original ten inches or so, eventually settling at between 12 and 14 inches.  Instead of just one, these now fed two to four people, perfectly suited for families and groups of friends.  This was the result of the ingredients available to those immigrants working in New York. The very fine '00' flour Neapolitan pizzaiolos used was not available, so unbleached flours of higher protein were used enabling the pizza-makers to make bigger, but slightly thinner pizzas that dwarfed their progenitors.  The ones made here were all fairly similar, still thin-crust with a minimal number of toppings, if more and different than those in Naples and the earliest pizzerias here.  Cheese, mushrooms, anchovies, ground beef, onions, and that Italian-American creation, pepperoni, were common, and often used in combinations. 
 
The easier-to-manage gas ovens eventually took over from coal in nearly all pizzerias in New York, making for a slightly different crust including a lack of sootiness.  The newer pizzamakers tended to adhere to the American maxim of more is better and put much more cheese on the pizzas than the original Neapolitan-American places, who remained true to their early minimalist ethos.  The margherita morphed into the cheese pizza, more cheese and with dried oregano replacing the fresh basil, which was more difficult to have on hand year-round in New York than in Naples.  The cheese that became popular with the eventually ubiquitous restaurants was use of low-moisture mozzarella over fresh mozzarella, which is not well suited to the lower temperature and longer cooking times of the gas ovens. An even more noticeable change was that pizza in New York eventually became to be served by the slice in addition to the whole pie.  This seemingly very simple thing allowed for smaller establishments  ̶  as a slice is essentially take-away or quick-eating fare  ̶  that are cheaper to start and run allowing for many more pizza shops, further expanding the reach of the pizza.
 
A New Haven pizzeria founded by a Neapolitan immigrant, Pepe's Pizzeria Napoletana, eventually introduced a version topped with clams (in the 1960s), but there still were not many regional differences.   Pizzas were simple, satisfying, affordable, and easy-to-like.  One variation to the standard pie, found in St. Louis to Chicago and east to West Virginia often in taverns, was cut the thin circular pizzas into squares that were easy to eat with one hand, beer in the other.  Pizzerias in St. Louis also began putting Provel cheese on their pies, a bland processed cheese that melts well, an Italian-American Velveeta, and another step toward industrial Americanization.
 
Somewhere along the line, the Sicilian pizza also joined the mix, likely the result of a pizzeria worker or owner from Palermo.  It was derived from the sfincione from Palermo, a type of spongy focaccia usually topped there with vegetables or tomato sauce and cheese or sardines or anchovies. So, customers at some pizzerias began to have two options dished with the same sauce and toppings: the original circular thin-crust, and a rectangular construction, the Sicilian, with a thick, softer crust. 
 
Pizza spread throughout the country after the Second World War, becoming far more common a sight than in Italy where it was still mostly confined to Naples and its environs.  In fact, it was difficult to find pizza north of Naples through the 1960s.   Here, it began to be served well beyond the Italian neighborhoods.  Starting and growing in areas with virtually no competition from pizzerias with Italian antecedents, several regional, national and international pizza companies got their start in the mid-1950s to 1960: Shakey’s in Sacramento (humorously, I guess, named after one of the malaria-damaged owners) in 1954, Pizza Hut in Wichita and Pizza Inn in Dallas in 1958, Little Caesar’s in suburban Detroit in 1959, and Domino’s in Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1960.   The commercially made gas then electric pizza ovens, along with large mixers for the dough introduced in the mid-1950s, helped make the creation of the pizzas easier, far less dependent on a seasoned pizza-maker.  American business know-how helped even more.  The franchise system increased the number of branches and market presence quickly.  Even if far from the best pizzas around – the pies usually featured doughier and blander crusts and lower-quality toppings – these pizza chains have been greatly enjoyed by millions over the years.  Not incidentally, with tremendous insight, or luck, Pizza Hut, Pizza Inn and Domino's first opened right near college campuses.  
 
Pizza has helped others gained their slice of the American dream, too.  Greek-owned places created many oregano-heavy pizzas in the New York area, in New England where they developed a distinctive style, and elsewhere.  Beginning in the 1990s, Albanian immigrants have owned and operated many pizzerias in the northeast.   These groups have also helped reinforce the truly American styles of pizzas, all of which have their roots in New York.
 
Chicago began to go a different route starting in 1943 with the first deep-dish pizza, to the everlasting disdain of New Yorkers.  Created at Pizzeria Uno by non-Italians, this hefty dish was really more of a casserole than a pizza (but still a pie), in line with the city’s big-food traditions.   It was baked at lower temperatures for around forty-five minutes or so, far longer than the thin-crust versions, but contained the usual pizza ingredients and flavors and grew to become the fiercely loved, dominant style in and around the Windy City.  Chicago-style has come to mean deep-dish.
 
Another type of pizza was added by a non-Italian, the designer pizza, or the California pizza, introduced in the early 1980s by Wolfgang Puck at his Spago restaurant in Los Angeles.   This helped expand the range of toppings thought possible.  Goat cheese, salmon, chicken, shrimp and even caviar were all successfully found atop Spago’s finely crafted pies.  Its success created a designer pizza craze in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s.  And, though Alice Water’s Chez Panisse might have been the first to do so a few years earlier and inspired Puck, Spago’s example was the one that really popularized the idea that pizza could be served at serious restaurants.  In the past half-dozen years or so, pizzas, and their simpler, easier-to-make cousin, the flatbread, have become a popular starter at many at fine dining or ambitious restaurant across the country.  There are great margins in these.
 
The most significant and interesting development the couple of decades is the emergence of the truly Neapolitan pizza.  There is even a certification body, Verace Pizza Napoletana Association (VPN) that looks at the use of the oven, wood-fired, of course, and the use of Neapolitan ingredients like the finely milled '00' flour made from soft wheat, San Marzano tomatoes from near Naples, and buffalo milk mozzarella, usually along with previous enrolment in one of their classes.  La Pizza Fresca was one of the very first in New York and the country in the mid-1990s.  Others acclaimed ones opening since then include Ribalta, Naples 45, Keste, Motorino and Don Antonio by Starita, a top pizzeria in Naples.  There Una Pizza Napoletana opened in New York in 2004 then relocated to San Francisco that helped to raise the form to great renown here, and stridency.
 
Pizza, more than ever, and in many more forms than ever, is an integral and ubiquitous presence in Americans eating habits.  I've come to know that even more with my ongoing Margherita Pizza Project.  It’s the third popular food in America according to a recent survey.  An example of how ingrained pizza has become in American culture is a vignette related by the former head of the Italian trade mission in New York.  Soon after arriving in the late 1990s he was asked in earnest by an American friend, “Gioacchino, how does one say ‘pizza’ in Italian?”


A margherita pizza, or is it a cheese pizza, at Mascalzone in Houston.

I had to track down Lorenzo Ruggeri after he finished helping lead a tasting of wines from northern Italy the other day.  He had just mentioned at the end of the session that the Italian publication hosting the event, Gambero Rosso, was announcing its picks for the best Italian restaurants in Houston later that day.  I had to leave soon and really wanted to know.  Gambero Rosso is mostly known for their thick annual Italian wine guide, but it also has guides for restaurants and now one for Italian food products.
 
I was very curious to learn what it had acclaimed in the city, assuming it would reward authenticity and adherence to native Italian products and flavors.  I make it point to pester foreign transplants and visitors for feedback about local restaurants serving their home cuisine, often finding it useful feedback. Thankfully, I was able to quickly find Ruggeri and inquire about the local winners. 
 
He was quickly forthcoming with the yet-unveiled winners. Amalfi won the top spot for fine dining, Sud Italia for traditional cuisine, Rosso Cane for pizza, and Poscol for the cantina.  I complimented him on the choices of Amalfi and Sud Italia. These are led by two of the top handful of Italian chefs in the state – Giancarlo Ferrarra at Amalfi and Maurizio Ferrarese at Sud Italia – though I was surprised about Cane Rosso.  I haven’t been impressed in several visits, finding the various Neapolitan-styled pizzas much more attractive than flavorful.  He said that it was tough to find good pizza, which I heartily if unfortunately agreed.  My view of the local pizza scene has diminished with the ongoing research for my Margherita Pizza Project.  And, Cane Rosso only got one of three pizza slices versus two of the other things (forks, bottles and no telling) for the other restaurants.  The fourth of the winners, Poscol, does have a very fine wine last, though I like the one better at its sibling a couple of blocks away, Dolce Vita.  But, Poscol has a much more appropriate cantina, or enoteca, setting and vibe.  Nicely, this information and some more is posted on Gambero Rosso’s website under the heading, “Top Italian Restaurants in Houston.”

Click here to see their picks in other cities, too.
 

One of Maurizio Ferrarese's delectable pasta dishes at Sud Italia

My Margherita Pizza Project is progressing, and the end is actually in sight this time, just a handful left, then some writing to do.  These are the restaurants whose margheritas (or margaritas) I have sampled most recently:
 
D’Amico’s – Satisfactory
Da Marco – Very Good / Good
Gorgeous Gael – Poor
Gotham – Fair / Poor
Healthy Cow Pizza – Satisfactory
Ibiza – Satisfactory / Fair
Luigi’s – Poor
Midici (Richmond) – Good
Osso & Kristalla – Good / Very Good
Pi Pizza – Good
Simone on Sunset – Fair


Below is the version at Da Marco with mozzarella di bufala that was very good.  Not surprisingly, Da Marco does a better job with it than most local places.

Well, who knows if the original margherita pizza first fired up in 1889 looked like the photo below, but this a margherita pizza at Brandi in Naples, where it was invented in 1889, as the plaque below it testifies.  I imagine it looked something like that.

It was absolutely terrific, by the way, and better than the other two pizzas we ordered, which were more laden with toppings.  Still excellent, the most restrained of three, the margherita was the best; less was more, when featuring a terrific, savory crust and excellent, amazingly complementary ingredients.

Below are the results of my most research – using the term as lightly as possible – into the surprisingly wide-ranging array of margherita pizzas offered throughout town since my last post on it about four weeks ago.  The ones below were each quite different from the others, some quite good and enjoyable and couple of others weren’t, especially the one from Star Pizza.  If I have any sage advice to give today, it is do not order a margherita pizza from Star Pizza.
 
Carrabba’s (Kirby) – Good
Correlli’s – Fair
La Griglia – Satisfactory
Star Pizza (Shepherd) – Poor
Tiny’s No. 5 – Good

The different, but attractive and tasty number from the precious Tiny's No. 5 in the heart of West U.

​Here are the cursory results of my most recent research since the last post about reviews.  Some good, very good, in fact, bad and ugly.  The bad and ugly were one and the same.

Amalfi – Very Good
La Vista – Satisfactory
Palazzo’s (Briargrove) – Good
Pass & Provisions – Very Good / Good
Sonoma (Heights) – Poor
Spaghetti Western – Good
Tasting Room (Uptown Park) – Good
Vincent’s – Fair
Weights + Measures – Good

The margherita at Weights and Measures, consumed.  Such a good place that works well in a variety of ways.

​When I was a kid, pizza seemed to come in just two ways: topped with pepperoni or a plain cheese pizza.  Of course, you could always add other toppings to the invariable New York-inspired crust from a limited array that always included sausage, (canned) mushrooms and anchovies.  There were no margherita pizzas back then; these were just the province of Naples and its environs.
 
The most interesting thing I have found in my “research” into local margheritas has been at Mascalzone and Taverna, two Italian-owned and -operated restaurants.  Though their versions have of the margherita have both been a little disappointing – and I have had a couple of very enjoyable pizzas at Mascalzone before – they give a hint into how the great American cheese pizza came about.  In each of these versions, the mozzarella was diced into small pieces and layered around the top, allowing it to mix with the tomato sauce and creating somewhat of an orange sheen, even a touch of grease helped by some olive oil.  More so, these two versions tasted a lot like the American cheese pizza.
 
So, my thought is that the cheese pizza probably had its origin in the margherita fairly early in the last century.  The gooey, greasy cheese pizza works much better with the sturdy New York-style crust than does the more delicate margherita assembly.  “Cheese pizza” might have been an easier sell to non-Italian-speaking customers, too.

The margherita pizza at Mascalzone recently, looking like a cheese pizza to me.

I just had a margherita pizza at Amalfi, which was very good, as you might expected.  It featured halves of cherry tomatoes, something that is not traditional for margherita pizza, though I am finding sliced tomatoes in a number of local versions of the pizza as I continue my sampling of the genre.  

Below is what I wrote about the noticeable quality of the tomatoes at Amalfi at a visit last year; it's something that can be a good insight into the quality of the restaurant.  To note, Bollo's tomatoes were better during my most recent visit, but not exactly flavorful, much less the level of those at Amalfi.

Underripe, nearly tasteless, and even worse, tomatoes are commonplace across the dining landscape.  To be fair, delicious tomatoes can be difficult to grow in the area and what usually gets shipped to local supermarkets, and restaurant supply stores, are bred for their transit-worthiness and shelf-life rather than their flavor.  When eaten raw in salads, a common occurrence, the quality of a tomato is quickly evident.
 
An appetizing tomato in Houston has become a hallmark for me of a restaurant of some quality and effort, maybe ambition, too.  Tomatoes eaten at two different restaurant on subsequent nights recently drove that point home.
 
On Thursday evening, I stopped at Bollo, the slick, new neighborhood pizzeria on W. Alabama in the space that used to be Sorrel.  I ordered their Margherita pizza, which was served with slices of tomato, instead of the Neapolitan way that features an uncooked, light sauce of pureed tomatoes at its base.  No matter, we don’t have strict naming conventions in this country, unfortunately, the tomatoes had unsightly, large yellow cores.  Obviously not very ripe, these tomatoes were very bland, at best.
 
The pizza was still pretty decent, if not nearly the Mascalzone or Dolce Vita level, and I’ll likely go back for a casual Italian-inspired pizza in a nice setting and atmosphere.  But, their tomatoes contrasted sharply with the tomato I had at Amalfi the next night.
 
You should expect that any tomatoes served at Amalfi, a restaurant featuring the cuisine of in and around the Amalfi coast from a native of the area, would be good.  Tomatoes are a staple of the cuisine there, and are absolutely terrific from the famed tomatoes grown in the San Marzano area to the large cuore di bue to the small cherry tomatoes.  Any decent replication of the cuisine would have to have succulent, flavorful tomatoes when meant to be eaten raw or lightly cooked.  And, they were that Friday night at Amalfi.
 
Soon after the start of what was an excellent meal, I noticed a purple half-sphere left on the plate of the nearly finished appetizer of luscious buffalo’s milk mozzarella, lettuce greens and at least a couple of different types of heirloom tomatoes.  I had almost missed it, a succulent, absolutely delicious tomato.  It was terrific, and a reminder of one the joys of southern Italian cooking, no matter the provenance of the tomato.  Something I wish more restaurant would take care in provisioning.
 
Amalfi
6100 Westheimer (between Fountain View and Hillcroft), 77057, (713) 532-2201
amalfihouston.com

Initially published on July 11, 2015.

The Regina Margherita at Amalfi on a visit last week.